By Opta Analyst | Created at 2026-09-04 11:22:34 | Updated at 2026-09-04 12:18:34
1 hour ago
Who will win the Champions League in 2026-27? Will PSG manage a three-peat? Can Arsenal finally win the one trophy that’s always eluded them? Can Real Madrid be discounted? Here, we detail how the Opta supercomputer sees this season going.
This piece was written ahead of the 2026-27 Champions League. For live, updating Champions League predictions, visit this page.
The Champions League returns for 2026-27 with another jam-packed schedule in its not-so-new 36-team league-phase format, with Matchday 1 kicking off on Tuesday 8 September.
From results over eight matchdays, the teams will be sorted into a league table, with the top eight progressing straight through to the last-16 stage.
The identity of those sides’ eight opponents will be decided via a play-off round, contested between the 16 teams who finish in positions nine through 24 in the league phase.
From there, it’s less complicated: a straightforward two-legged knockout format to whittle the teams down to a final two, and ultimately a winner, to be crowned at the Metropolitano Stadium in Madrid on 5 June next year.
But who is going to get through the league phase in the top eight places? Who is most likely to need the safety net of the play-off round? And who is going to win the whole thing? The Opta supercomputer has all the answers.
But first up, some shocking news: last season, the Opta supercomputer didn’t quite get it right in the Champions League, predicting Liverpool would win the trophy. They crashed out in the quarter-finals to eventual winners PSG, who the supercomputer had as third favourites to win it. The team they beat in the final, Arsenal, were the second favourites.
So, the predictions weren’t a million miles off, but they weren’t quite right.
But can the supercomputer redeem itself by predicting this year’s winner? It has run 10,000 simulations of the 2026-27 UCL season and here, we can reveal the proportion of those simulations that ended with each possible eventuality.
Champions League 2026-27 Predictions
- Arsenal are favourites to win the Champions League in 2026-27, with more than one-fifth (21.2%) of the simulations ending in glory.
- The likeliest threat to Mikel Arteta’s side is Bayern Munich, who won only slightly fewer of the simulations (19.9%).
- Manchester City are the only other side given more than a 10% chance of winning the UCL (12%).
- Reigning champions PSG are fourth favourites, given a 7.7% chance of making it three Champions League titles in a row.
Champions League Favourites in 2026-27
After coming within a penalty shootout of Champions League glory last season, Arsenal are deemed frontrunners this time around.
They finished top of the league phase in 2025-26, becoming the first team ever to win all eight games. And although they are the favourites to win the competition, they are only the second-likeliest side to top the league phase again in the eyes of the Opta supercomputer, given an 18.5% chance of doing so.
While last season they had one of the easiest sets of league-phase opponents according to our analysis using the Opta Power Rankings, this time around, they have a tougher schedule. You can read more about that here:
They are extremely likely to progress to the knockouts, doing so in 93.1% of simulations.
However, the fact that they have to play Bayern Munich away from home has given the German champions the edge in the league-phase stakes. Bayern finished top of the league in more simulations (19.8%) than any other side and progress to the knockouts most often, too (93.5%).
They are slightly less likely to win the whole thing than Arsenal, though, given a 19.9% chance, because Arsenal are the strongest team in the world right now, according to the Opta Power Rankings.
Manchester City are given a 12% chance of winning the Champions League for a second time, having first done so in 2022-23. However, in the three seasons since winning it, they have made the quarter-finals, knockout play-off round and last 16; a big improvement will be required if they are to go all the way. And what’s more, of the main contenders, they have the toughest league-phase fixtures, so will need to perform well just to make the top eight. The supercomputer still gives City an 86.3% chance of making the last 16.
Back-to-back champions PSG are the fourth favourites, winning a third straight title in 7.7% of simulations. Real Madrid are the only club ever to win three successive Champions League titles, while they, Ajax and Bayern all did it in the European Cup era, too.
Other Champions League Contenders
Barcelona haven’t won the Champions League since 2015, but they are in with a chance this season in the eyes of the supercomputer. They won 7.0% of simulations at the time of writing.
Real Madrid can never be discounted when it comes to the Champions League, having won it twice in the last five seasons and a record 15 times (including the European Cup era). But their relatively low 5.1% chance of glory is a reflection of the fact they haven’t won a major trophy since winning the Champions League in 2023-24. In fact, in the two seasons since, they haven’t even made it past the UCL quarter-finals.
Liverpool also have plenty of European pedigree and should not be written off, making three finals in five seasons between 2017-18 and 2021-22. They are deemed just as likely as Madrid to win the competition again (5.1%), and are given an 11.2% chance of making the final.
Best of the Rest
Could this be the season Manchester United fire themselves back into the game’s elite with a surprise run to European glory?
They are back in the Champions League after a two-year absence, but while they have won the competition three times, their most recent triumph came in 2007-08, and they haven’t been past the quarter-final stage since finishing as runners-up back in 2010-11.
The Opta supercomputer quite rightly considers United outsiders to win it this season (3.7%), but they have a decent chance of making it as far as the quarters (37.4%) or even the semis (19.1%).
Internazionale also cannot be ruled out having made the final in two of the last four seasons, and they are given an 8.3% chance of getting to the final again, though their 3.4% probability of winning the competition shows just how much of an outsider they are.
Aston Villa are the 10th-likeliest side to win the Champions League this season, but their chances are rated at just 2.0%, and their poor start to the domestic campaign after seeing so many key players leave in the summer suggests they may be up against it in Europe’s biggest competition.
Borussia Dortmund (1.8%), Roma (1.4%), Sporting CP (1.4%) and Club Brugge (1.0%) are the only other teams deemed to have more than a one-in-a-hundred shot at winning the Champions League. That leaves 22 teams who were victorious in fewer than 1.0% of simulations.
The Rank Outsiders
There is a huge chasm in the quality between the best and worst sides in the Champions League, but in 10,000 simulations of the season, the Opta supercomputer still saw every one of the 36 teams win the competition at least once.
Shakhtar Donetsk, Slovan Bratislava and UCL debutants Sabah, from Azerbaijan, are the weakest teams in the competition, yet they each went all the way in exactly one of the 10,000 simulations. That means they each have a 0.01% chance of glory.
LASK and Feyenoord both won it in 0.03% of simulations; AEK Athens won in 0.06%.
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